Encoding/Decoding Characters and Narrative in Nusantara Droid War

The portrayal of droid characters in Nusantara Droid War and its narrative style, as stated by its authors, are an effort to introduce and promote Indonesian culture through a webtoon so that it can be widely accepted by readers. Regarding the mentioned subject, we intended to study the readers‘ receptions by employing Stuart Hall's arguments on encoding/decoding model of communication. The research was conducted by doing a literature study to obtain data about encoding and interviewing selected informants using purposeful sampling method to obtain data about decoding. The results of this study shows that the authors try to instill respect and appreciation to Indonesian culture in the readers through pictures and narrative of the webtoon. This intention is well-understood by the readers as the majority of informants can be categorized in preferred/dominant/hegemonic reading while only few respondents are categorized in negotiated reading.